Legislators or politicians?

The petition calling for an inquiry into President Megawati Soekarnoputri's decision to attend the birth of East Timor last month is another grim illustration of how most of our elected representatives need to elevate themselves from being a bunch of opportunistic politicians who have nothing else better to do with their time. In spite of the tight legislative agenda of the House of Representatives, and in spite of repeatedly failing to keep to its schedule, these elected representatives prefer to squander their time and resources playing power politics, rather than do their work as legislators.

The petition, signed by 31 House members and filed with the House leadership last week, calls for an inquiry into why President Megawati went ahead with her visit to East Timor on May 19 and May 20 despite objections from some House members. A week earlier, the House decided to pursue an investigation into Megawati's decision to grant Rp 30 billion, taken from the presidential aid funds (Banpres), to help renovate dilapidated military barracks throughout Indonesia.

These two planned inquiries follow closely on the heels of another debate within the House about a probe into the scandal at the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), involving House Speaker Akbar Tandjung. After eight months of lengthy debates, the House still cannot come to an agreement whether or not to probe Buloggate II. With two more inquiries on the agenda, we can be sure that House members will be even busier wrestling each other in the coming months.

This raises the following questions: Do they have time for anything else? What about the House's legislative agenda? What about the many bills that have been left pending because the House has been too busy playing with power politics instead of conducting their work as legislators? What about national reforms?

When the nation held its first democratic elections in four decades in 1999, it was with the highest expectation that elected politicians would spend a great portion of their time deliberating and enacting new laws. Given the nation's concerns for a complete overhaul of the way the country is managed, we assumed that legislation would be their main job.

The goal of turning the nation into a more humane and prosperous civil society hinges to a large extent on the House's ability to enact new laws in just about every field that is necessary, not only to correct past mistakes, but also to allow the nation to build a sound future. It is no exaggeration to state that half of all the problems this country is dealing with today -- and let's face it, we do have many serious problems -- could be resolved if we only had stronger and effective laws.

Since the task of making laws is in the hands of the House of Representatives, its success or failure, or the pace of reforms, is really in the hands of our politicians who were elected into the House in 1999. If reforms appear to have stalled, then we know where the problem lies.

The House has been engaging in the politics of a power struggle virtually from the start of its formation in October 1999. It spent so much time and resources fighting President Abdurrahman Wahid until he was impeached in July last year. Since then, it has spared no effort in undermining the leadership of President Megawati, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

In contrast, the House's performance in enacting new laws has been abysmal. In the last working session between January and April, the House managed to deliberate and endorse only six new laws out of the targeted 16. In the current working session, it has given itself a target of endorsing 22 new laws, including the 10 carried over from the last session. As we are halfway through the session, we know that the House will fail to meet its stated target again.

The House of Representatives for the 1998-1999 period (during B.J. Habibie's presidency) is remembered as setting a record for the highest number of laws enacted. But because they were all rushed jobs, many of these laws had to be repealed and reviewed. The 1999-2004 House of Representatives will probably break a new record for the lowest number of legislations passed. And some of these new laws were just as poorly deliberated.

Somehow, we do not know which is worse. But we do know the poor caliber of our elected politicians. They still have to earn their title as legislators, the office they were elected to.